"Might be! You select your words strangely; you must have some deeper motive for your unusual blindness. I desire, for the last time, that you cease either the subject to me, or your acquaintance with me, whichever you prefer."
With which, he went up the steps of White's, and I strolled on, amazed at the fierce acrimony of his tone, utterly unlike anything I had ever heard from him, wished their pride to the devil, called myself a fool for meddling in the matter at all, and went to have a quiet weed in the smoking-room of the U. S. to cool myself. I was heartily sick of the whole affair. If they wanted it cleared, they must clear it themselves—I should trouble myself no more about it. Yet I couldn't altogether dismiss Beatrice's cause from my mind. I thought her, to say the truth, rather harshly used. I liked her for her fearless, truthful, impassioned character. I liked her for the very courage and pride with which she preferred to relinquish any chance of regaining her forfeited happiness, rather than stoop to solicit exculpation from charges of which she knew she was innocent. Perhaps, at first, she did not consider sufficiently Earlscourt's provocation, and perhaps, now, she was too persisting in her resentment of it; still I liked her, and I was sorry to see her, at an age when life should have been couleur de rose, to one of her gay and insouciant nature, with a weary, passionate look on her face that she should not have had for ten years to come—a look that was rapidly hardening into stern and contemptuous sadness.
"You tell me I am too bitter," she said to me one day, "how should I be otherwise? I, who have wronged no one, and have never in my life done anything of which I am ashamed, am called an intrigante by Lady Clive Edghill, and get ill-will from strangers, and misconstructions from my friends, merely because, thinking no harm myself, it never occurs to me that circumstances may look against me; and, hating falsehood, I cannot lie, and smile, and give soft words where I feel contempt and indignation. Mrs. Breloques yonder, with whom les présens ont toujours raison, and les absens ont toujours tort, who has honeyed speeches for her bitterest foes, and poisoned arrows (behind their back) for her most trusting friends, who goes to early matins every morning, and pries out for a second all over the top of her prayer-book, who kisses 'darling Helena,' and says she 'never looked so sweetly,' whispering en petit comité what a pity it is, when Helena is so passée, she will dress like a girl just out—she is called the sweetest woman possible—so amiable! and is praised for her high knowledge of religion. You tell me I am too bitter. I think not. Honesty does not prosper, and truth is at a miserable discount; straightforward frankness makes a myriad of foes, and adroit diplomacy as many friends. If you make a prettily-turned compliment, who cares if it is sincere? if you hold your tongue where you cannot praise, because you will not tell a conventional falsehood, the world thinks you very ill-natured, or odiously satirical. Society is entirely built upon insincerity and conventionality, from the wording of an acceptance of a dinner invitation, where we write 'with much pleasure,' thinking to ourselves 'what a bore!' to the giant hypocrisies daily spoken without a blush from pulpit and lecturn, and legitimatized both as permissible and praiseworthy. To truth and unconventionality society of course is adverse; and whoever dares to uphold them must expect to be hissed, as Paul by the Ephesians, because he shivered their silver shrines and destroyed the craft by which they got their wealth."
Beatrice was right; her truth and fearlessness were her enemies with most people, even with the man who had loved her best. Had she been ready with an adroit falsehood and a quick excuse, Earlscourt's suspicions would never have been raised as they were by her frank admission that there was something she would rather not tell him, and her innocent request to be trusted. That must have been some very innocent and unworldly village schoolmaster, I should say, who first set going that venerable proverb, "Honesty is the best policy." He must have known comically little of life. A diplomatist who took it as his motto would soon come to grief, and ladies would soon stone out of their circles any woman bête enough to try its truth among them. There is no policy at greater discount in the world, and straightforward and candid people stand at very unequal odds with the rest of humanity; they are the one morsel of bread to a hogshead of sack, the handful of Spartans against a swarm of Persians, and they get the brunt of the battle and the worst of the fight.
VI.
HOW PRIDE BOWED AND FELL.
Beyond meeting Earlscourt at White's, or, for an hour, at the réunion of some fair leader of ton, I scarcely saw him that season, for he was more and more devoted to public life. He looked wretchedly ill, and his physicians said if he wished to live he must go to the south of France in July, and winter at Corfu; but he paid them no heed; he occupied himself constantly with political and literary work, and grudged the three or four hours he gave to sleep that did him little good.
"Will you get me admittance to the Lords to-morrow night?" Beatrice asked me, one morning, when I met her in the Ride. I looked at her surprised.
"To the Lords? Of course, if you wish."